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'RipCode Transcoder' will be the video industry's first open source professional cloud-enabled software transcoder platform

RGB Networks, the leading provider of the industry's most scalable and unified solutions for multiscreen video delivery, has announced that it is developing an open source version of its popular TransAct Transcoder.

Called 'Ripcode Transcoder', after the company Ripcode, which was acquired by RGB Networks in 2010 and which originally developed TransAct, the new, cloud-enabled software transcoder will provide RGB Networks' customers with greater control, integration and flexibility in their video delivery workflows. In a pioneering move, and harnessing the industry momentum toward developing cloud-based solutions, RGB Networks is actively welcoming operators and vendors to be part of a community of contributors to the open source project.

RGB Networks' CloudXtream solution for nDVR and dynamic Ad Insertion for Multiscreen (AIM) environments, launched in October 2013 and built on the industry standard open source cloud operating system OpenStack, has paved the way for this latest innovation. The company intends to build on this success with RipCode, which will be an "open core" project, where the core technology from the TransAct Transcoder is being used to create the foundations of the open source project. Suitable for a variety of applications, the RipCode Transcoder will include the full feature set expected of an industrial-strength, professional transcoder, leaving customers open to select and integrate the packaging solution of their choice necessary to produce their desired Adaptive Bit Rate output formats.

"The IPTV industry has finally embraced the cloud. And, at RGB Networks, we recognize how open source projects like this can help promote the use of standard APIs which make it much easier for vendor-to-vendor integration and for video service providers to migrate to a cloud-based video delivery model," said Andy Salo, VP of product management at RGB Networks. "We look forward to working with the open source community of other video-related open source software at this exciting time in the industry to open source the RipCode Transcoder with optimal integration and code contributions."

The intended feature set of the open source RipCode Transcoder will include:

Both Linear (live) and Video on Demand (VOD) transcoding

Full cluster management, load balancing, and failover

Linear and VOD transcoding of MPEG2, H.264, H.265, AAC, AC3, and other industry leading video and audio codecs

File-to-File watch folders

Full reporting and logging of events

Commercial-grade GUI

RESTful APIs

Unlike other open source projects, an open source transcoder is more difficult to release due to built-in professional codec licensing. RGB Networks will release RipCode Transcoder with only the codecs that can be legally used with open source software. Additionally, in order to facilitate use of the transcoder in professional environments that require licensed, third party codecs and pre/post processing filters, the RipCode transcoder will include a plug-in framework, that will allow use of best-of-breed codecs and filters. A number of vendors of such components and related technologies have expressed interest in participating in the RipCode initiative including the following:

"We are glad to see the support of many companies in the early stage of this open source initiative, unique in our industry" said Simone Sassoli, VP Marketing and Business development at RGB Networks. "In addition to technology vendors and solution providers, we've had a very positive reception from major service providers like Comcast, Charter and Rogers and we expect to announce additional key partners planning to contribute to the open source effort to help accelerate innovation and adoption."

Luis E. Vielma Ord��ez, Chief Operating Officer of Telecable, commented: "This initiative represents a game changer for the deployment of a next generation television services. It can deliver faster time to market and substantially lower licensing and maintenance costs than other solutions. Open source software delivers comparable features and quality with greater deployment flexibility, enabling a high innovation velocity for our services."

The release of the first version of RipCode Transcoder - 1.0 - with all the appropriate licensing is targeted for Q1 2015.

About Beamr: Beamr is an imaging technology company that works with the world's leading web publishers, social networks and media companies to enable optimal user experiences across any user device or platform. Led by serial entrepreneurs and technology experts with extensive experience in media compression and delivery, Beamr's goal is to improve the user experience and reduce the costs associated with storing and transmitting media files through its JPEGmini and Beamr Video products. Beamr Video's patent-pending technology enables smoother streaming experiences by cutting video bitrate by up to 50 percent without compromising quality, while significantly reducing video delivery costs for distributors. For more information, visit http://www.beamrvideo.com/.

About DivX, LLC: DivX, LLC is leading the way to better, more seamless consumer video experience by powering the professional creation, protected distribution and high-quality playback of highly efficient video to multiple devices and platforms. DivX, along with its subsidiary MainConcept, offers service providers, device manufacturers and integrators technologies that address the entire video supply chain with solutions for software applications, OTT content services and consumer electronics devices. Over 1 billion DivX enabled devices have shipped worldwide from major manufacturers and DivX consumer software products have been downloaded over 1 billion times. DivX is based in San Diego, CA, with offices across Europe and Asia. For more information on the company, visit www.divx.com/company.

About eBrisk Video: Founded by Industry veterans in November 2009, eBrisk Video is a leading developer of intellectual property in the area of video compression algorithms as well as a leading provider of H.265/HEVC video compression software solutions for video conferencing and broadcast/streaming applications. The company's H.265/HEVC solutions are designed to improve substantially the visual experience of video conferencing and broadcast/streaming applications on current platforms over existing networks. eBrisk Video's full-featured real-time H.265/HEVC encoding solutions feature the best video quality and the highest density in the market.

About Fraunhofer: When it comes to innovative audio technologies for the rapidly evolving media world, Fraunhofer IIS stands alone. For more than 25 years, digital audio technology has been the principal focus of the Audio and Multimedia division of the Fraunhofer Institute for Integrated Circuits IIS. From the creation of mp3 and the co-development of the AAC to the future of audio entertainment for broadcast, Fraunhofer IIS brings innovations in sound to reality. Today, technologies such as Fraunhofer Cingo for virtual surround sound, Fraunhofer Symphoria for automotive 3D audio, AAC-ELD for telephone calls with CD-like audio quality, and Dialogue Enhancement that allows television viewers to adjust dialogue volume to suit their personal preferences are among the division's most compelling new developments. Fraunhofer IIS technologies enable more than 7 billion devices worldwide. The audio codec software and application-specific customizations are licensed to more than 1,000 companies. The division's mp3 and AAC audio codecs are now ubiquitous in mobile multimedia systems. Fraunhofer IIS is based in Erlangen, Germany and is a division of Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft. With more than 23,000 employees worldwide, Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft is comprised of 67 institutes and research units making it Europe's largest application-oriented research organization.

About Ittiam Systems: Ittiam Systems Private Limited, headquartered in Bangalore, India, is a technology company focused on providing cutting edge multimedia solutions for a wide range of products as well as cloud services. With its wide range of components, SDK's, applications, hardware platforms, turnkey systems and cloud based workflows, Ittiam offers solutions to automotive, broadcast, consumer and mobility as well as industrial and defense markets. Embedding Ittiam IP inside, annual volume of customers' products shipped is in several tens of millions units.

About Multicoreware: MulticoreWare, Inc. is a leading provider of high performance video processing software libraries including the x265 HEVC encoder, UHDcode HEVC decoder, GPU accelerated Video Processing Library and GPU accelerated VP9 decoders. MulticoreWare's parallel computing tools, libraries and expertise in heterogeneous computing forms the foundation of a worldwide professional services business, with more than 200 engineers in 6 locations. For more information, please visit http://www.multicorewareinc.com/.

About NGCodec Inc.: NGCodec is a start-up based in Silicon Valley creating video codec silicon Intellectual Property. The founders have extensive experience developing video codec IP, FPGAs and SoC's. The team is focused on the new H.265/HEVC codec. The company was founded in 2012. NGCodec licenses its silicon IP technology to semiconductor manufacturers and OEMs. http://www.ngcodec.com/@NGCodec

About Squid Systems: Squid Systems, Inc. is a global innovator in video compression and image processing technology, with industry-leading HEVC algorithms that produce better visual quality at any bit rate, and deeper compression at any level of visual quality. Squid provides software products and hardware IP for customer deployment of H.265 HEVC video encoding and decoding. The company has its headquarters in California's Silicon Valley with R&D facilities in Hyderabad, India.

About Telecable Owned by Grupo Hevi, Telecable is one of the largest telecom operators in Mexico, and one of the most important multi-system operators (MSO). With 40 years of experience in the market, Telecable is currently present in more than 10 states, generates more than 2,000 direct jobs, and provides customer service in its more than 100 branches to its approximately 600,000 subscribers, who can enjoy cable TV with services such as High Definition and Digital TV, High Speed Internet with DOCSIS 3.0 technology and Digital Telephony services throughout the country using a 8,000 miles hybrid coaxial fiber and optical fiber network. For more information about Telecable please visit: http://www.telecable.net.mx/

About Vanguard Video: Founded in 1995, Vanguard Video is a supplier of professional, broadcast quality H.265/HEVC and H.264 codec SDKs to top tier customers around the world. With deep codec expertise, unparalleled performance and quality, and world class support, Vanguard Video has helped its customers capitalize on many first to market opportunities by pioneering top tier encoding solutions including the release of the world's first commercially deployed H.265/HEVC service. Vanguard Video codecs support a wide range of platforms including software implementations for x86 and ARM microprocessors, OpenCL acceleration for GPUs, and IP Cores for FPGA devices. For more information, please visithttp://www.vanguardvideo.com/.

'RipCode Transcoder' will be the video industry's first open source professional cloud-enabled software transcoder platform

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RGB Networks, the leading provider of the industry's most scalable and unified solutions for multiscreen video delivery, has announced that it is developing an open source version of its popular TransAct Transcoder.

\n

Called 'Ripcode Transcoder', after the company Ripcode, which was acquired by RGB Networks in 2010 and which originally developed TransAct, the new, cloud-enabled software transcoder will provide RGB Networks' customers with greater control, integration and flexibility in their video delivery workflows. In a pioneering move, and harnessing the industry momentum toward developing cloud-based solutions, RGB Networks is actively welcoming operators and vendors to be part of a community of contributors to the open source project.

\n

RGB Networks' CloudXtream solution for nDVR and dynamic Ad Insertion for Multiscreen (AIM) environments, launched in October 2013 and built on the industry standard open source cloud operating system OpenStack, has paved the way for this latest innovation. The company intends to build on this success with RipCode, which will be an \"open core\" project, where the core technology from the TransAct Transcoder is being used to create the foundations of the open source project. Suitable for a variety of applications, the RipCode Transcoder will include the full feature set expected of an industrial-strength, professional transcoder, leaving customers open to select and integrate the packaging solution of their choice necessary to produce their desired Adaptive Bit Rate output formats.

\n

\"The IPTV industry has finally embraced the cloud. And, at RGB Networks, we recognize how open source projects like this can help promote the use of standard APIs which make it much easier for vendor-to-vendor integration and for video service providers to migrate to a cloud-based video delivery model,\" said Andy Salo, VP of product management at RGB Networks. \"We look forward to working with the open source community of other video-related open source software at this exciting time in the industry to open source the RipCode Transcoder with optimal integration and code contributions.\"

\n

The intended feature set of the open source RipCode Transcoder will include:

\n

\n

Both Linear (live) and Video on Demand (VOD) transcoding

\n

Full cluster management, load balancing, and failover

\n

Linear and VOD transcoding of MPEG2, H.264, H.265, AAC, AC3, and other industry leading video and audio codecs

\n

File-to-File watch folders

\n

Full reporting and logging of events

\n

Commercial-grade GUI

\n

RESTful APIs

\n

\n

Unlike other open source projects, an open source transcoder is more difficult to release due to built-in professional codec licensing. RGB Networks will release RipCode Transcoder with only the codecs that can be legally used with open source software. Additionally, in order to facilitate use of the transcoder in professional environments that require licensed, third party codecs and pre/post processing filters, the RipCode transcoder will include a plug-in framework, that will allow use of best-of-breed codecs and filters. A number of vendors of such components and related technologies have expressed interest in participating in the RipCode initiative including the following:

\"We are glad to see the support of many companies in the early stage of this open source initiative, unique in our industry\" said Simone Sassoli, VP Marketing and Business development at RGB Networks. \"In addition to technology vendors and solution providers, we've had a very positive reception from major service providers like Comcast, Charter and Rogers and we expect to announce additional key partners planning to contribute to the open source effort to help accelerate innovation and adoption.\"

\n

Luis E. Vielma Ord��ez, Chief Operating Officer of Telecable, commented: \"This initiative represents a game changer for the deployment of a next generation television services. It can deliver faster time to market and substantially lower licensing and maintenance costs than other solutions. Open source software delivers comparable features and quality with greater deployment flexibility, enabling a high innovation velocity for our services.\"

\n

The release of the first version of RipCode Transcoder - 1.0 - with all the appropriate licensing is targeted for Q1 2015.

About Beamr: Beamr is an imaging technology company that works with the world's leading web publishers, social networks and media companies to enable optimal user experiences across any user device or platform. Led by serial entrepreneurs and technology experts with extensive experience in media compression and delivery, Beamr's goal is to improve the user experience and reduce the costs associated with storing and transmitting media files through its JPEGmini and Beamr Video products. Beamr Video's patent-pending technology enables smoother streaming experiences by cutting video bitrate by up to 50 percent without compromising quality, while significantly reducing video delivery costs for distributors. For more information, visit http://www.beamrvideo.com/.

\n

About DivX, LLC: DivX, LLC is leading the way to better, more seamless consumer video experience by powering the professional creation, protected distribution and high-quality playback of highly efficient video to multiple devices and platforms. DivX, along with its subsidiary MainConcept, offers service providers, device manufacturers and integrators technologies that address the entire video supply chain with solutions for software applications, OTT content services and consumer electronics devices. Over 1 billion DivX enabled devices have shipped worldwide from major manufacturers and DivX consumer software products have been downloaded over 1 billion times. DivX is based in San Diego, CA, with offices across Europe and Asia. For more information on the company, visit www.divx.com/company.

\n

About eBrisk Video: Founded by Industry veterans in November 2009, eBrisk Video is a leading developer of intellectual property in the area of video compression algorithms as well as a leading provider of H.265/HEVC video compression software solutions for video conferencing and broadcast/streaming applications. The company's H.265/HEVC solutions are designed to improve substantially the visual experience of video conferencing and broadcast/streaming applications on current platforms over existing networks. eBrisk Video's full-featured real-time H.265/HEVC encoding solutions feature the best video quality and the highest density in the market.

\n

About Fraunhofer: When it comes to innovative audio technologies for the rapidly evolving media world, Fraunhofer IIS stands alone. For more than 25 years, digital audio technology has been the principal focus of the Audio and Multimedia division of the Fraunhofer Institute for Integrated Circuits IIS. From the creation of mp3 and the co-development of the AAC to the future of audio entertainment for broadcast, Fraunhofer IIS brings innovations in sound to reality. Today, technologies such as Fraunhofer Cingo for virtual surround sound, Fraunhofer Symphoria for automotive 3D audio, AAC-ELD for telephone calls with CD-like audio quality, and Dialogue Enhancement that allows television viewers to adjust dialogue volume to suit their personal preferences are among the division's most compelling new developments. Fraunhofer IIS technologies enable more than 7 billion devices worldwide. The audio codec software and application-specific customizations are licensed to more than 1,000 companies. The division's mp3 and AAC audio codecs are now ubiquitous in mobile multimedia systems. Fraunhofer IIS is based in Erlangen, Germany and is a division of Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft. With more than 23,000 employees worldwide, Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft is comprised of 67 institutes and research units making it Europe's largest application-oriented research organization.

About Ittiam Systems: Ittiam Systems Private Limited, headquartered in Bangalore, India, is a technology company focused on providing cutting edge multimedia solutions for a wide range of products as well as cloud services. With its wide range of components, SDK's, applications, hardware platforms, turnkey systems and cloud based workflows, Ittiam offers solutions to automotive, broadcast, consumer and mobility as well as industrial and defense markets. Embedding Ittiam IP inside, annual volume of customers' products shipped is in several tens of millions units.

\n

About Multicoreware: MulticoreWare, Inc. is a leading provider of high performance video processing software libraries including the x265 HEVC encoder, UHDcode HEVC decoder, GPU accelerated Video Processing Library and GPU accelerated VP9 decoders. MulticoreWare's parallel computing tools, libraries and expertise in heterogeneous computing forms the foundation of a worldwide professional services business, with more than 200 engineers in 6 locations. For more information, please visit http://www.multicorewareinc.com/.

\n

About NGCodec Inc.: NGCodec is a start-up based in Silicon Valley creating video codec silicon Intellectual Property. The founders have extensive experience developing video codec IP, FPGAs and SoC's. The team is focused on the new H.265/HEVC codec. The company was founded in 2012. NGCodec licenses its silicon IP technology to semiconductor manufacturers and OEMs. http://www.ngcodec.com/@NGCodec

\n

About Squid Systems: Squid Systems, Inc. is a global innovator in video compression and image processing technology, with industry-leading HEVC algorithms that produce better visual quality at any bit rate, and deeper compression at any level of visual quality. Squid provides software products and hardware IP for customer deployment of H.265 HEVC video encoding and decoding. The company has its headquarters in California's Silicon Valley with R&D facilities in Hyderabad, India.

\n

About Telecable Owned by Grupo Hevi, Telecable is one of the largest telecom operators in Mexico, and one of the most important multi-system operators (MSO). With 40 years of experience in the market, Telecable is currently present in more than 10 states, generates more than 2,000 direct jobs, and provides customer service in its more than 100 branches to its approximately 600,000 subscribers, who can enjoy cable TV with services such as High Definition and Digital TV, High Speed Internet with DOCSIS 3.0 technology and Digital Telephony services throughout the country using a 8,000 miles hybrid coaxial fiber and optical fiber network. For more information about Telecable please visit: http://www.telecable.net.mx/

\n

About Vanguard Video: Founded in 1995, Vanguard Video is a supplier of professional, broadcast quality H.265/HEVC and H.264 codec SDKs to top tier customers around the world. With deep codec expertise, unparalleled performance and quality, and world class support, Vanguard Video has helped its customers capitalize on many first to market opportunities by pioneering top tier encoding solutions including the release of the world's first commercially deployed H.265/HEVC service. Vanguard Video codecs support a wide range of platforms including software implementations for x86 and ARM microprocessors, OpenCL acceleration for GPUs, and IP Cores for FPGA devices. For more information, please visithttp://www.vanguardvideo.com/.